By Death Possessed

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘You’ll stay where you are, until I’ve decided what to do with you.’

  He snapped his fingers, having seen Evelyn use it so effectively, and he and Paul Mace moved to one side. I stared at Evelyn, and she at me.

  ‘It’s all gone to your head, hasn’t it!’ she said sadly. ‘A week ago, and you were the same old plodding Tony I’ve always known, now you’ve got this obsession—’

  ‘The truth, that’s all I want.’

  ‘The truth is that you’ve got me in this mess, and you don’t seem to care if I stay in it.’

  I tried to work out how much I cared.

  ‘Mess? You seem to be enjoying yourself.’

  She smiled thinly. ‘I might get some well-paid work out of it.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ I rapped back sharply, annoyed that she, so perceptive normally, could be so easily taken in.

  ‘Don’t you call me—’

  ‘He’s leading you on. The easiest way to hold you here, that’s what it is.’

  She was shaking her head. ‘Oh no, Tony. If you think we’re not watched every minute, you’re mistaken. And overheard. What we’re saying now, somebody, somewhere, is listening to.’

  It was a warning. I shrugged and got to my feet, ostensibly with impatience but in reality to check her statement. Nobody was in earshot, nobody was watching us. I thought she was mistaken, but Aleric caught my eye and inclined his head fractionally.

  I had been paying too little attention to our son, taking him for granted. But he’d heard what we’d been discussing, and knew what was going on. He heaved his weight from the statue and strolled over to me.

  ‘You sure are in trouble,’ he said, making it sound admirable.

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Then give him the paintings. It’s no skin—’

  ‘You heard. They could be very valuable.’

  ‘Oh ... sure ...’ He shrugged lazily, and looked sly.

  ‘And incidentally, I now know that both your great grandparents were artists.’

  ‘You don’t say! What do I do, roll about in ecstasy?’

  I should have become used to his casual dismissal of everything not in his restricted sphere of experience, such as discos and fringe drugs and motorbikes.

  I grimaced at him. ‘Please yourself. I thought you might be encouraged to think you could one day amount to something.’

  ‘A painter? Garn!’

  ‘Have you seen my grandfather’s paintings in the gallery here? Or possibly my grandmother’s, of course.’

  ‘Haven’t troubled.’

  ‘They wouldn’t let you near them, anyway.’

  He winked. Nodded. What he said contradicted the visual evidence. ‘Never get in there.’

  I began to wonder whether he had something to say, to tell me, and had been laying a smokescreen. I spoke resignedly. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘When y’ get outs here, Pa, can you go and see about the bike?’ he asked.

  ‘Bike? Yours?’ It seemed totally irrelevant in its context.

  ‘I left it in the drive. It’ll get nicked.’

  ‘Yes. Well certainly, I’ll do that. But will they let me go?’

  ‘Sure to. With you here, they’re gettin’ nowhere. Put it in the garage for me, Pop, will ya?’

  ‘It’ll be locked. Your mother always locks it.’

  ‘The key’s on the hook in the kitchen.’

  ‘But she’s changed the house locks. How do I get in?’

  His gaze slid sideways, as though he was considering this obstacle. ‘You know the big glass door that faces the trees. At the back.’

  That was what his eyes had rested on, the plate glass door. We had no such door at home, and no trees at the back. ‘I know what you mean.’ I knew, now, why he’d introduced his motorbike into the conversation.

  ‘It’ll be open,’ he said with confidence. ‘You’ll see. Just try it.’

  I thought about that. What was he suggesting? I tested him out. ‘The neighbours’ll think I’m a burglar.’

  ‘Not if you come through the trees.’

  ‘After dark? I’d get lost.’

  ‘You gotta torch, ain’t ya?’

  ‘It’d be seen.’

  ‘Odd flashes. You could do it. Three flashes—who’d see them?’

  ‘If somebody did ...’

  ‘Not in the trees. Nobody’d be there, would they?’

  ‘And all this for a blasted motorbike!’

  ‘It’s important, ain’t it?’

  ‘Depends on the point of view,’ I told him.

  He grinned. This was the first time he’d treated me to a genuine grin of pleasure instead of a leer. ‘Yeah, an’ I reckon it’s time you thought of mine, if I can think of yours.’

  He’d certainly given some thought to mine. I gave him a considering look. For too long he’d been an unpleasant object in the background of my existence, best ignored. I hadn’t tried to probe his depths, because his creed demanded a shallow outlook on life. It appeared I might have been negligent. He had known exactly what was going on, had weighed up the pros and cons, and had made a decision. He was on my side, even though there were facets of my character he could not know about. He hadn’t wasted his time here. He had learned the details of the set-up and worked out how the security might be probed. Not bad for a nineteen-year-old layabout.

  ‘You’ll be getting bored here,’ I suggested. ‘Yeah. You got to do somethin’ though, ain’t ya!’

  I agreed, and would have pursued our growing intimacy if Coombe’s voice hadn’t summoned me. ‘Hey you!’

  I turned. A decision had been reached. I went over to him. ‘You called?’ Evelyn turned, frowning, on her chair.

  ‘We’re going to let you go,’ Coombe said, ‘because there’s only you can get those paintings back from Christie’s or wherever. Which you will do. Understand me? You will bring them here and let Paul have a look. He says he can tell if they’re Frederick Ashe paintings or not.’

  ‘He’s seen the photographs. They ought to tell him.’

  Paul Mace stood, his lips thin, his eyes brooding. ‘Not good enough. I need to touch the paint. Feel the texture. It’s an instinct. Not many of us have got it.’

  But the strain showed around his jaw and in the tic at the corner of one eye. He was laying everything—possibly even his life—on his ability to make a decision. Or perhaps he was counting on the fact that there was nobody around there who could dispute it.

  I tossed in a challenge. ‘And what if I don’t come back?’ What could Coombe threaten now? Evelyn’s life? Aleric’s? I wondered whether he was sufficiently certain of my reactions if he did.

  Coombe didn’t fall into the trap. ‘Then we come after you. You can’t hide away for ever. I might be able to save Evelyn the trouble of divorcing you, and she’d get them as an inheritance.’

  Nicely put, I thought admiringly. Nothing messy, such as breaking a few limbs. I would simply die. I turned to Evelyn. ‘I’d like my painting to go to Aleric, Evelyn, please.’

  She stared at me, her lips moving but no sound emerging. I was aware that my remark had been based on something close to hysteria, and Aleric understood.

  ‘Say, Pop, that’s great!’ he burst out.

  Then, to my surprise, Evelyn picked it up. She had never before ventured into light farce. ‘I always told you that you ought to make a will,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, get him out of here!’ Coombe growled angrily, and this Paul Mace did with obvious relief.

  The goon stood at the open front door, watching me drive away. Aleric stood behind him, his thumb up.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I drove to Lynmouth to get something to eat and to buy a torch. It was early in the holiday season, and not crowded. Time needed wasting, so I spent it watching the river flowing out of the gorge, and strolling round the harbour. But when the sun was low on the horizon my nerves pressed me into action. There was no point in trying to reach Coombe’s residence until late, when all
but a minority of the guards would be asleep, but I had no idea how long it would take me to navigate that valley from the road above. I was relying on one basic fact; all I had to do was keep heading downhill, until I reached the trees that Aleric had mentioned.

  I realize now that I must have been in a state of euphoria, brought about by the sheer magnitude of Coombe’s villainy. To a person like me, he was so far from anyone I had ever before met I was quite unable to contemplate him as a serious obstacle. I was nervous, but strangely confident. I was over-simplifying.

  It was dark in the Coombe valley, with only a glow on the horizon beyond the hills facing me, when I edged the nose of the Fiesta into the parking place I’d used before. This in itself was tricky, as I dared not use lights, and yet it had to be far enough in from the roadway as not to attract attention from any night travellers. I did it by moving a few inches, getting out to check, moving another foot, until I had the front wheels right against the fall-off. I checked that I had with me all I needed.

  The bulk of my photographic equipment I’d left locked away at my photo-lab, and I’d brought along only my little Ricoh. A photographer would feel naked without at least one camera. This Ricoh is useful in that it slips away into my anorak pocket with scarcely a bulge, is light, and yet is a true 35 mm job with a good lens, though with rather a wide angle. I’d also pocketed my smallest flashgun, with an extension lead. As I’ve explained, for what I had in mind—and I’d had it in mind all the while—a flashgun used on the hot-shoe of the camera is unsuitable. I was fully equipped, my torch in my other pocket.

  All I needed was the resolution to start. Standing there, watching the valley becoming more and more black, I suddenly doubted my ability to carry it through. I was wearing jeans and my cleated walking shoes, so was well equipped in that way, but I was not a hill climber, and it was damned frighteningly dark. There was only one thing to do, which was to get going. So I did.

  What became evident at once was that the gorse—I assumed it to be gorse—which formed a solid carpet six inches thick, not only dragged at my feet, but was slippy. I found, also, that it was difficult not to break into a run, the slope being so steep. The fact that I could no longer see the ground meant that each foot went down blind, and they never seemed to reach a firm surface when I expected them to. The jarring began to shake my spine. It was more effort to steady my progress than if I’d been climbing.

  I was only a hundred yards down from the road when a new difficulty arose. During daylight I had looked down, and the impression had been of a smooth surface all the way to the trees. I discovered that this was not so when my right foot, descending in its turn, met nothing. I pitched face forward, and it was only reflex action that enabled me to twist and land on my left shoulder. The drop had been only a foot, but the shock was great. I tried to prevent myself from rolling, scrambling with my feet and digging my fingers in, and finished up spread-eagled, glued to the slope with my face in the gorse.

  Gingerly, I rolled over until I was sitting. It seemed I was stuck there. How could I continue if the surface was ridged and pitted, with rock breaking through the ground and the soil washed away beneath it? I had no way of being certain that all the sudden drops were of no more than a foot. The only thing I could think to do was to use my torch.

  But this slope, I recalled, had risen almost from Renfrew Coombe’s terrace, though slightly to one side. A light could not possibly go unobserved. I looked back. The peak was outlined dimly above me against the lighter sky. I could just detect the nose of the car. The temptation was to begin the climb back to it; this was something very much removed from my normal experience.

  I decided to give it a little more time. There was a possibility of being able to back down, feeling with my feet and with my hands trailing in the gorse. This I managed for perhaps a hundred feet, by which time my face was becoming scratched and my hands sore. I tried it seated, edging down in tentative jerks. Nobody’s behind can stand this for long.

  Wearily and desperately I got to my feet, realizing I’d have to take it blind and risk the falls. Or go back. No, to hell with that! Aleric would laugh me out of existence.

  I put one foot in front of the other, repeated it, and was moving again, and discovered I could reach down with each foot with more confidence if I progressed with bent knees, in a semi-crouch. My knees began to ache. Pain shot up behind my thighs. But I progressed.

  Twice more I fell, the second time over a drop of three feet, which flung me in a tangle of pain on to a bed of small rocks. Something moved beside me. More skilful feet than mine clattered away. Hill sheep. I groaned, and rolled over, staggering to my feet before blissful inertia could capture me.

  Now, I realized, I was in sight of the house. I could see lights, at windows too extensive to belong to any of the cottages. I had time, all the time I needed, I told myself. I stepped forward.

  Some minutes passed without incident, and I realized I was now walking on a different surface. Lower down, grass took over from the gorse. Hence the sheep, I suppose. Also, when I could raise my head from the concentration of stepping forward, I noticed I could no longer see the lights of the house. For a moment this baffled me. Then I realized I had reached the tree line.

  Now that my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, I could see the dimly separated shapes of the trees. In assistance, the moon was rising. Not a full moon, but better than nothing. I wondered whether, once inside the tree cover, I might dare to use my torch.

  I had covered no more than ten feet when I discovered I would have to.

  My confident assumption that I needed only to move downhill now became a bad joke. Bruised and scratched and aching, I wanted only to sit down, lean back against the bole of a tree, and wait for daylight. But this I dared not do.

  I moved onwards but the trees, their roots massed, had tossed up the ground unevenly. There was no down or up. It was all up and down combined. Besides which, I realized, I did not require to move downhill, because there I’d find the village. The big house should now be somewhere on my right. And possibly higher, I supposed.

  Two hours later, still stumbling over root boles, I was using my torch unsparingly, in despair and frustration. In this way, having fumbled up a rise, I suddenly noticed I was walking on smooth and level grass. It could be nothing else but the croquet lawn, the only level surface for miles. I cut the torch, promptly hooked my foot in a croquet hoop, and fell flat on my face.

  When I lifted my head, I saw first a reflection of the moon in glass, then, below it, three winks of light. A torch. I groped for mine and flicked back. Three times. Aleric was there.

  I clambered to my feet. Clear now of trees, I discovered that the moonlight revealed the lawn and its hoops. I loped across, up on to the terrace, and directly to the plate-glass window. It opened. Aleric, a monkey on his shoulder, was standing there. I could have thrown my arms around him, but the monkey might well have objected.

  The reason I could see him was because a faint green light filtered through the shrubbery around us. An all-night light, apparently. It showed me a chair. I collapsed into it.

  ‘Never again,’ I said, keeping my head down. ‘Never.’

  ‘I thought you’d got lost.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘We’ll have to move. He might come round soon.’

  ‘He? Round?’

  He prodded a shape on the floor with his foot. ‘The guard. They leave one sitting in here all night. He’s doped.’

  I had forgotten guards, burglar alarms, all the protection Coombe would have laid on. ‘The alarms!’

  ‘Difficult to rig a glass door without the wires showing,’ Aleric said briskly. ‘I found ’em in two minutes.’

  I was in no mood to move, but my breathing was steadying. ‘The guards? Doped, you say?’

  ‘Pa, I ain’t been lounging around doing nothin’. Been making myself useful. Made out I was hopin’ to be taken on the strength. They let me take round the coffee. I put barbiturates in, f
or tonight’s guards.’

  ‘Where the devil—’

  ‘I carry ’em. Bennies and barbies.’

  ‘You’re on drugs?’ I was appalled.

  ‘Nar! But you gotta carry ’em. Uppers and downers at least. Or you’re out, Pop, way outa the stream.’

  ‘Ye gods.’

  ‘We gotta move. You all right? You’re not as young ...’

  ‘I’m fine. Lead on.’

  He took me up a rear staircase and confidently along corridors. We dared show no lights, but the moon through the high windows helped. Aleric had certainly looked around. He knew every step of the way.

  We rounded a corner. I stopped. At the end of a short corridor a light shone. There was a door, and beside it a chair, on which a man was seated.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Aleric told me in a confident voice. ‘He’s asleep.’

  As he was. A mug stood beside him on the floor, and his chin was down on his chest. Beside him was a tall container of sand, used as an ashtray. The door showed a steel surface, with a single round keyhole, beneath it a knob not intended to turn.

  ‘That does it,’ I said. It’s a high-security lock.’

  ‘Dad, now ask yourself. You’ve got this door, with a special key. Are you going to carry it around with you? No ... you’d be scared of losing it. Maybe there’s a duplicate, but you’d be afraid of losing that one too. So where do you keep it, handy for the door but concealed? Think, Pop.’

  I thought, but nothing came. He was running his fingers through the sand in the ashtray bin. They came up holding a peculiar cylindrical key with tiny protrusions around it. He had to turn it in the lock three times, then there was a faint click, and the door swung open.

  It was an impenetrable black inside. Aleric eased the door shut, pocketing the key, and pressed a switch. He raised his voice to normal.

  ‘Reckon we’re all right in here, Pa. Nobody’ll hear. But make it quick, huh?’

  Now that we were no longer whispering, I could confirm what I thought I’d already detected. Gone was the slurred and lazy clipping of words, the vernacular of whatever was in at that time. Inside this bulky slough, who was my son, there was a normal human being. A competent one, too, judging by the calm and matter-of-fact way he’d managed this.